Pubdate: Wed, 02 Mar 2016
Source: Prince George Citizen (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Prince George Citizen
Contact: http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/350
Author: Eddie Johnson
Page: 4
WAR ON DRUGS A LOSING BATTLE
Let me quote a few lines from a Vancouver Province newspaper
editorial from Friday, March 5, 1965:
"It began with a few pounds of heroin...seizure of 76 pounds of pure
heroin at Laredo Texas. That amount of heroin diluted and broken into
small lots for 'pushing' in the underworld market is estimated to be
worth $56 million when sold to addicts... its legal worth in the
pharmaceutical trade is about $30 an ounce. In their futile endeavors
to prohibit the use of narcotics North American legislators are
maintaining an illicit traffic that guarantees its participants
$1,500 for every dollar invested. It is no wonder the dope trade is
never at a loss for recruits.
"But anti-narcotic laws have not suppressed the traffic. Police are
constantly on the trail of peddlers. Magistrates send a steady stream
of addicts and 'pushers' to prison and detectives intermittently
seize a few pounds of heroin worth millions only because the drug is
outlawed... if addicts could obtain drugs at legal cost from properly
authorized dispensers one thing is certain. There would be no more
fortunes for drug peddlers and international drug rings. No longer
would there be the incentive of huge profits. The traffic would soon
die a natural death."
As a young policeman in Vancouver at the time, this editorial had
particular resonance. Fifty-one years ago is a lifetime.
Has anything changed?
Only now are we talking about legalizing marijuana. How many hundreds
of millions or is it billions of dollars have been spent on this "war
on drugs." The implications go far beyond the money spent or the
profit lost on not having legal drugs.
It's the thefts, the robberies, the B&Es, the women that turned to
prostitution, lives ruined, not by using the drug, but by it being illegal.
For anyone suggesting that legalization is not the way to go I would
ask, "What do you suggest? The drugs are already out there and
readily available to anyone with the bucks."
Eddie Johnson
Prince George
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